Unlocked iPhone 4S coming in November

Early Friday morning, Apple revealed that if you’d like to purchase an unlocked iPhone 4S, you’ll be able to do so come November.

Email this to a friend

Characters remaining:

What is A + B?

Early Friday morning, Apple revealed that if you’d like to purchase an unlocked iPhone 4S, you’ll be able to do so come November.

While U.S. carriers Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon began accepting iPhone 4S preorders Friday, some customers may prefer a phone that’s not locked to any specific carrier. Until Friday, Apple hadn’t announced whether an unlocked iPhone 4S phone would be available. (Apple first offering an unlocked version of the iPhone 4 in June 2011.)

An option on Apple’s iPhone 4S preordering site reveals that an unlocked, carrier-free iPhone 4S will arrive in November, though Apple still hasn’t given a specific date.

Apple notes that, even though the iPhone 4S is a world phone with GSM and CDMA capabilities, the unlocked iPhone 4S can only be used with GSM carriers like AT&T. While it’s possible to get an unlocked iPhone working on T-Mobile—and even easier now that T-Mobile offers Micro-SIM cards—you’re limited to 2G speeds on T-Mobile’s network.

The unlocked iPhone 4S will cost $649 for the 16GB version, $749 for the 32GB version, and $849 for the 64GB version. As with the unlocked iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S prices are significantly higher than the $199 to $399 price range of the carrier-locked phones, since the required two-year contract with locked phones subsidizes the rest of the purchase price.